Attempted Assassination On President William McKinley: Assassinated by an Anarchist

On September 5, 1901, President William McKinley delivered a speech at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He informed the audience of fairgoers that he was reconsidering his views on tariff policy. Also in attendance that day was Leon Czolgosz (pronounced “cholgosh”), a Detroit-born anarchist of Polish parents, who was prevented by Secret Service agents from approaching the stage where McKinley was speaking.

The following day, the president appeared at a public reception in the Temple of Music on the Exposition grounds. A large crowd had assembled to shake hands with the president and exchange a few words. Czolgosz stood near the front of the line with his right hand wrapped in a handkerchief to make it appear as if he were protecting an injured hand from infection. When his turn came, Czolgosz extended his left hand toward the president while firing two rapid shots from a .32 caliber revolver concealed behind the covering.

McKinley fell backward, a pool of blood forming on his chest. Secret service agents and police immediately disarmed the assassin and began to inflict a near fatal beating. McKinley was still conscious and pleaded that the assault on Czolgosz stop. The president also asked that care be taken when informing his chronically ill wife of the event.

McKinley was taken to a local hospital where he underwent surgery for his gunshot wounds. It at first appeared that he would recover, but complications set in and the president died on September 14, 1901.

Czolgosz received a hasty trial, was found guilty of murder and was electrocuted in the state prison at Auburn, New York on October 29.

Attempted Assassination On: James Garfield (1881)

Less than four months after his inauguration, President Garfield arrived at the Washington railroad depot on July 2, 1881, to catch a train for a summer's retreat on the New Jersey seashore. As Garfield made his way through the station, Charles Guiteau raced from the shadows and fired two shots point blank into the president. One grazed Garfield's arm; the other lodged in his abdomen. Exclaiming, "My God, what is this?" the president collapsed to the floor remaining fully conscious, but in a great deal of pain.
The assassination of President Garfield
The first doctor on the scene administered brandy and spirits of ammonia, causing the president to promptly vomit. Then D. W. Bliss, a leading Washington doctor, appeared and inserted a metal probe into the wound, turning it slowly, searching for the bullet. The probe became stuck between the shattered fragments of Garfield's eleventh rib, and was removed only with a great deal of difficulty, causing great pain. Then Bliss inserted his finger into the wound, widening the hole in another unsuccessful probe. It was decided to move Garfield to the White House for further treatment.

Leading doctors of the age flocked to Washington to aid in his recovery, sixteen in all. Most probed the wound with their fingers or dirty instruments. Though the president complained of numbness in the legs and feet, which implied the bullet was lodged near the spinal cord, most thought it was resting in the abdomen. The president's condition weakened under the oppressive heat and humidity of the Washington summer combined with an onslaught of mosquitoes from a stagnant canal behind the White House. It was decided to move him by train to a cottage on the New Jersey seashore.

Shortly after the move, Garfield's temperature began to elevate; the doctors reopened the wound and enlarged it hoping to find the bullet. They were unsuccessful. By the time Garfield died on September 19, his doctors had turned a three-inch-deep, harmless wound into a twenty-inch-long contaminated gash stretching from his ribs to his groin and oozing more pus each day. He lingered for eighty days, wasting away from his robust 210 pounds to a mere 130 pounds. The end came on the night of September 19. Clawing at his chest he moaned, "This pain, this pain," while suffering a major heart attack. The president died a few minutes later.


Garfield's physicians did not serve him well. It seems each of his 16 attendants wanted to literally get their hands into him - to prod and grope his wound in an attempt to find the illusive bullet. Infection invariable set in. Internal sores developed - oozing pus and requiring periodic lancing in order to reduce their size. Medicine had not yet fully accepted the relationship between germs and disease. Operations were routinely performed without benefit of surgical gloves, masks, sterile instruments, or any antiseptics to protect the patient. Of more immediate concern to the patient, operations were performed without any means of deadening the pain. The patient was left to his or her own devices to cope with the trauma of surgery.

Garfield was not a particularly popular president. His short span of office had not been long enough for the public to form an opinion one way or the other. However, the stoic manner in which he endured his wounds warmed the popular attitude towards him.

Garfield's chief physician, Dr. D. W. Bliss recounts how the president coped with his condition:

"At this time, as is known, a simple but painful operation was rendered necessary by the formation of a superficial pus-sac. When, after consultation, I informed the President of the intention to use the knife, he with unfailing cheerfulness replied: 'Very well; whatever you say is necessary must be done.' When I handed the bistoury to one of the counsel, with the request that he make the incision. Without an anesthetic, and without a murmur, or a muscular contraction by the patient, the incision was made. He quietly asked the results of the operation, and soon sank into a peaceful slumber. This operation, though simple in itself,
President Garfield
was painful, and the manner in which it was borne by the President in his enfeebled condition was, perhaps, as good an instance as any of the wonderful nervous control which characterized his whole illness. This power of mind over body was also daily exhibited at the dressings of his wound, which were unavoidably painful, and yet invariably borne without indication of discomfort; and also at subsequent operations, always painful."
Train Ride To New Jersey

When the decision was made to move the president to New Jersey, an English nobleman offered the use of his twenty-room home on the seashore. Special track was laid from the railroad's mainline to the door of the home. During the early hours of September 6, hushed crowds lined Pennsylvania Avenue as Garfield was moved by carriage from the White House to the railroad depot.

Dr. Bliss continues his story:

"Mrs. Garfield sat by the side of her husband during the first part of the trip, cheering and reassuring him as no one else could, and visited him afterward, frequently, from her own car. On arriving at the track recently laid to the Francklyn Cottage, we were surrounded by a large concourse of people, who braved the heat of the day in the anxiety lest the journey might have resulted disastrously. The engine had not weight and power sufficient to push us up the steep grade. Instantly hundreds of strong arms caught the cars, and silently, but resistlessly, rolled the three heavy coaches up to the level. Arriving at the cottage, the President was placed upon a stretcher, and borne under the canopy previously arranged, to the room wherein the remainder of a noble life was spent."

Death in the Evening

During the evening of September 16, Dr. Bliss passed the time reading when a servant rushed in announcing a change in the President's condition:

"At 10:10 I was looking over some of the wonderful productions of the human imagination which each mail brought me, when the faithful Dan suddenly appeared at the door of communication, and said;

The death of President Garfield a contemporary and inaccurate portrayal

'General Swaim wants you quick!' He preceded me to the room, took the candle from behind the screen near the door, and raised it so that the light fell full upon the face, so soon to settle in the rigid lines of death. Observing the pallor, the upturned eyes, the gasping respiration, and the total unconsciousness, I, with uplifted hands, exclaimed, 'My God, Swaim! The President is dying!' Turning to the servant, I added, 'Call Mrs. Garfield immediately, and on your return, Doctors Agnew and Hamilton.' On his way to Mrs. Garfield's room, he notified Colonel Rockwell, who was the first member of the household in the room. Only a moment elapsed before Mrs. Garfield was present. She exclaimed, 'Oh! what is the matter?' I said, 'Mrs. Garfield, the President is dying.' Leaning over her husband and fervently kissing his brow, she exclaimed, 'Oh! Why am I made to suffer this cruel wrong?'

While summoning Mrs. Garfield, I had in vain sought for the pulse at the wrist, next at the carotid artery, and last by placing my ear over the region of the heart. Restoratives, which were always at hand, were instantly resorted to. In almost every conceivable way it was sought to revive the rapidly yielding vital forces. A faint, fluttering pulsation of the heart, gradually fading to indistinctness, alone rewarded my examinations. At last, only moments after the first alarm, at 10:35, I raised my head from the breast of my dead friend and said to the sorrowful group, 'It is over.'

Noiselessly, one by one, we passed out, leaving the broken-hearted wife alone with her dead husband. Thus she remained for more than an hour, gazing upon the lifeless features, when Colonel Rockwell, fearing the effect upon her health, touched her arm and begged her to retire, which she did."
References:
Bliss, D. W., The Story Of President Garfield's Ilness, Century Magazine (1881); Marx, Rudolph, The Health of the Presidents (1960); Taylor, John M., Garfield of Ohio (1970).
Alexander Graham Bell and the Garfield Assassination
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Attempted Assassination on PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

John Wilkes Booth, born May 10, 1838, was an actor who performed throughout the country in many plays. He was the lead in some of William Shakespeare's most famous works. Additionally, he was a racist and Southern sympathizer during the Civil War. He hated Abraham Lincoln who represented everything Booth was against. Booth blamed Lincoln for all the South's ills. He wanted revenge.

In late summer of 1864 Booth began developing plans to kidnap Lincoln, take him to Richmond (the Confederate capital), and hold him in return for Confederate prisoners of war. By January, 1865, Booth had organized a group of co-conspirators that included Samuel Arnold, Michael O'Laughlen, John Surratt, Lewis Powell (also called Lewis Paine or Payne), George Atzerodt, and David Herold. Additionally, Booth met with Dr. Samuel Mudd both in Maryland (where Mudd lived) and Washington, and he began using Mary Surratt's boardinghouse to meet with his co-conspirators.

On March 17, 1865, the group planned to capture Lincoln who was scheduled to attend a play at a hospital located on the outskirts of Washington. However, the president changed plans and remained in the capital. Thus, Booth's plot to kidnap Lincoln failed.
On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox. Two days later Lincoln spoke from the White House to a crowd gathered outside. Booth was present as Lincoln suggested in his speech that voting rights be granted to certain blacks. Infuriated, Booth's plans now turned in the direction of assassination.

On the morning of Friday, April 14, Booth dropped by Ford's Theatre and learned that the president and General Grant were planning to attend the evening performance of Our American Cousin. He held one final meeting with his co-conspirators. He said he would kill Lincoln at the theater (he had since learned that Grant had left town). Atzerodt was to kill Vice-President Andrew Johnson at the Kirkwood House where Johnson resided. Powell was assigned to kill Secretary of State William Seward. Herold would accompany Powell. All attacks were to take place simultaneously at approximately 10:15 P.M. that night. Booth hoped the resulting chaos and weakness in the government would lead to a comeback for the South.

The presidential party arrived at Ford's at about 8:30 P.M. Armed with a single shot derringer and a hunting knife, Booth arrived at Ford's at about 9:30 P.M. Joseph Burroughs, a boy who worked at the theater, held his horse in the rear alley. Booth went next door to a saloon for a drink. He entered the front of Ford's Theatre around 10:07 P.M. Slowly he made his way toward the State Box where the Lincolns were sitting with Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone. Lincoln's bodyguard, John Parker of the Metropolitan Police Force, had left his post. At about 10:15 P.M. Booth opened the door to the State Box, shot Lincoln in the back of the head at near point-blank range, and struggled with Rathbone. Booth stabbed Rathbone in the arm and jumped over 11 feet to the stage below. When he hit the floor he snapped the fibula bone in his left leg just above the ankle. Many in the theater thought he yelled "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (Latin for "As Always to Tyrants"). Mrs. Lincoln screamed, Booth flashed his knife at the audience, and he made his way across the stage in front of more than 1,000 people. Everything happened so fast that no one had time to stop him. Booth went out the back door, climbed on his horse, and escaped from the city using the Navy Yard Bridge.

Atzerodt made no attempt to kill Johnson, and Powell stabbed Seward but failed to kill him. Herold escaped from the capital using the same bridge as Booth. The two met in Maryland and stopped briefly around midnight at Mary Surratt's leased tavern in Surrattsville where Mrs. Surratt had earlier left the message to have supplies ready and had dropped off a wrapped package that contained Booth's field glasses. About 4:00 A.M. Booth and Herold arrived at Dr. Mudd's home where Mudd set and splinted Booth's broken leg. Back in Washington Lincoln never regained consciousness and passed away at 7:22 A.M. on the morning of April 15, 1865, at the Petersen House (across the street from the theater).

Booth and Herold departed from Dr. Mudd's during the afternoon of April 15 and traveled south. Federal authorities caught up with them at Garrett's farm near Port Royal, Virginia, early in the morning of April 26. Hiding in a barn, Harold gave up. Booth refused, so the barn was set on fire. Booth still didn't come out and was shot to death by Sergeant Boston Corbett. Corbett had not been under orders to do this. Booth's body was searched, and a diary was among the things found. Booth's remains were returned to Washington where positive identification was made and an autopsy performed.


Within days the government arrested Booth's co-conspirators (except John Surratt). A military tribunal tried them, and all were found guilty. Mrs. Surratt, Powell, Atzerodt, and Herold were all hanged on July 7, 1865. Dr. Mudd, O'Laughlen, and Arnold were given life terms in prison. Edman "Ned" Spangler, a Ford's stagehand who was convicted of helping Booth escape from the theater, received a sentence of six years in prison. The convictions of Mary Surratt and Dr. Mudd have been hotly debated throughout the years. John Surratt escaped to Canada and then to Europe. He was captured abroad and was tried in 1867 in a civil court. The trial ended with a deadlocked jury, and Surratt went free. O'Laughlen died in prison (Ft. Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas near Key West) in 1867. President Andrew Johnson pardoned Dr. Mudd, Arnold, and Spangler early in 1869

Abraham Lincoln Assassination and Memorial
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